FORT WORTH, Texas — Kyle Busch returned to a familiar place at Texas Motor Speedway — Victory Lane.

Busch held off Kevin Harvick by 0.300 seconds to take the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 on Sunday afternoon.

“This has been a trying couple of months,” said Busch, who now has 44 career Cup wins. “After Daytona (finishing 25th), we’ve just been on a roll of finishing really good and getting really pumped and excited about that and the momentum we were able to carry, but frustrated at the same time trying to get to Victory Lane.”

Busch had finished 2-2-3-2 in the four races going into Texas, and a Joe Gibbs Racing car had yet to win a Cup race.

Those near misses finally ended at TMS, a track that has suited Busch well throughout his career. Sunday marked his third Cup victory to go along with eight Xfinity wins and three truck wins.

Busch, 32, continued the season-long trend of veterans winning races. Texas billed its kickoff race weekend on the young stars of the sport, but they haven’t had a breakthrough yet.

Busch was followed by a couple drivers in their 40s, Harvick and Jamie McMurray. Four of the young drivers the track promoted finished in the top-10 with Erik Jones (4), Ryan Blaney (5), Bubba Wallace (8) and William Byron (10).

Harvick, who has three wins so far, blamed NASCAR-issued pit-gun equipment for his runner-up finish. He felt that kept his team from a fourth win of the season.

“We had a pathetic day on pit road because of pit guns,” Harvick said. “Time after time you can’t get the lug nuts on because the pit guns don’t work.”

As far as the race itself, a handful of contenders saw their days end with 155 laps in a seven-car pileup that red-flagged the race for 11 minutes, 3 seconds. Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Aric Almirola were among those knocked out in the biggest accident of the day.

“By the time I saw it, because I was rows back, the No. 11 (Hamlin) was backward and sliding up the track,” said Johnson, TMS’ all-time leader in Cup wins (seven) who won this race a year ago.